Reach Out
by eyepennies
Summary: Ron was killed in The Second War, and his death has left Hermione emotionally incapacitated. A permanent resident at St. Mungo’s, she seems completely unreachable... until someone comes along who might have suffered more than her.
1. Chapter 1

I.

_Fill these spaces up with days  
In my room you can go you can stay  
I can't sleep i can't speak to you  
Now these years locked in my drawer  
I'll open to see just to be sure  
I can't sleep i can't speak to you  
And so i'm reaching out for the one_

Azure Ray - Sleep  
--

Hermione stared at the blank wall. Dark circles enveloped her eyes. She hardly ever slept anymore. 

"Miss Granger?"

Hermione made no indication that she had heard the voice, but she knew it belonged to the blonde, blue eyed Healer who was always on shift this time of day.

"You have a visitor, Miss Granger."

No reply.

The Healer sighed and said, "Go ahead, sir."

Harry Potter stepped into the room. Although she had her back to the door, Hermione knew it was him. She had memorized the sound of his movements, the way he walked, the sound of him closing the door and his approaching footsteps on the cold concrete floor. They were always the same; careful, slow and controlled.

Visitors were required to rehearse proper conduct when they came to visit The Forlorn. 'Keep your voice steady.' That was one rule. 'No sudden movements.' was the second. 'Keep your wand imminent at all times, but out of sight,' was the last and most important rule.

"Hello, Hermione!" Harry's voice rung out and echoed off the bare walls, bouncing back onto them. She hated the way his voice was always falsely cheery when he talked to her. "I was offered a higher position at the ministry today," he said evenly, abiding dutifully by the first rule. "I don't know if I'm going to accept it though... I quite like being a lowly Auror."

Hermione blinked at the wall.

She hadn't spoken for over a year now.

In the beginning, when Harry used to visit her everyday, she would cry. Tears would silently stream down her face without her making any effort to stop their seamless flow. Harry had stared at her with a hopeless look on his face. "Hermione..." he would say. "I'm sorry."

Hermione had always wanted to say something. Let him know she knew it wasn't his fault. That she never blamed him. She wanted to cry on his shoulder and let her tears flow freely as if all the pain inside her could be expelled along with them. She didn't know what she could say that could possibly express all that, so she never tried. She just let her tears fall and let him apologize for something they both knew he wasn't responsible for.

At night she would lay awake, thinking about him. Imagining where they might be and what they might be doing if he were still alive. Sometimes she'd drift off to sleep, still thinking about him, and those thoughts would morph into dreams. They would have lived in a big red brick house out in the countryside, not too far away from The Burrow. She'd be making breakfast for their five little red-haired children when he'd stroll into the kitchen and in typical Ron fashion, say something cheeky, making her scowl. Before she could respond with something equally bantam, his arms would be wrapped around her in a tight hug, and he'd place a swift kiss on her lips.

Hermione would smile in her sleep and roll over.

Her heart always broke into a million little pieces when she woke up. After a few months, she stopped sleeping.

After a few more months, she didn't even bother to cry.

Harry didn't come to visit as often anymore.

---

Before she was moved to ward 50, indefinitely inhabited by The Forlorn, she had heard Harry speaking to a Healer outside her room.

"I talk to her all the time, but she never responds. Does she still understand.. things.. and people?"  
There was an uncomfortable pause.  
"There isn't really a definite answer to that, Mr. Potter. It all depends on how much she _wants_ to understand."  
"So..." Harry sighed. "She might not be in there anymore?"  
Another pause.  
"It's a possibility."

Three days later, she was moved to the long-term residents section of ward 50.

---


	2. Chapter 2

II.

_Words are flying out like  
endless rain into a paper cup  
They slither while they pass  
They slip away across the universe  
Pools of sorrow waves of joy  
are drifting thorough my open mind  
Possessing and caressing me_

The Beatles - Across the Universe  
--

Hermione sat on the floor, gazing down at the scars on her arms. She couldn't remember how she had got all of them. Frowning, she traced a particularly big one running across her left wrist. That was from her first week at St. Mungo's. She had broken a mirror and used the biggest shard. They had moved her into a restricted ward after that, without visitors. After the mirror, it was a fingernail file she had bewitched to become razor sharp. Then she had conjured pocket knives and razors... anything she could think of. In the end, they bound her magic and she was moved to a windowless room, completely bare except for a bed.

---

"Do you like me?"

Ron looked nervously at Hermione. They were in the middle of heaving their trunks on to the Hogwarts Express for the journey back to King's Cross after they had just finished their sixth year.

"I-I mean... erm.. as more than a friend?"

Hermione had looked at him surprisedly.

Ron blushed a furious shade of crimson and stammered on. "I just.. I mean, we'll be going with Harry soon to find the last Horcruxes.. and I just thought.. in case we-- you should know. That I _do_..." He looked at the floor, his ears reddening to match his face, as he said almost inaudibly, "..like you."

When they got off the train that day, Ron and Hermione were holding hands.

---

"Miss Granger, it's time for your Sleeping Potion."

Hermione was still sitting on the floor, tracing her scarred arms. She didn't look up.

The handsome, dark-haired healer entered and sat down on the bed in front of her. He bent down until his eyes were level with hers. "Miss Granger... we want to help you. But we can't do that unless you let us."

He always said that before he gave her the potion.

His eyes were locked on hers, but her eyes were focused stubbornly on the floor. "Fine," he said, leaning back. He placed a small glass vial full of a purple potion on the floor next to her. "It's Unbreakable glass, so don't get any ideas," he said, eying her arms. He got up, looked at her for a moment, and left.

Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione followed the Healer's feet untill he had closed the door. When she heard his footsteps trail away, she picked up the glass vial. She stroked it's smooth surface with trembling fingers. Dreamless sleep. No Ron. No more woeful nightmares, disguised as beautiful dreams of alternate realities that might have been. She drained the vial in one gulp. The room began to blur almost immediately. She couldn't even muster the strength to drag herself over to the bed, but slumped down on the floor, her arms and legs caught in awkward positions underneath her exhausted body.

"No! - Let me go! NOOO!" Hermione jerked awake.

Someone was screaming in the hallway outside her door.

"Stop! LET ME GO! Let go of me, you fucking-" there was a loud kick on Hermione's door, followed by the scurrying of feet and several yells of _"Impedimenta!"_ followed by _"Incarcerous!"_

Getting groggily to her feet, Hermione stumbled over to the door and opened it very slightly. She frowned as she tried to make her eyes focus on the slim figure laying immobile on the floor, bound by thick ropes. He was unconscious and his silvery blond hair was splayed across his face. Even though he looked older, even though his hair was longer and had lost it's once glowing sleekness, and even though she hadn't quite woken up yet, her mouth dropped open and her eyes widened in instant recognition.

She had always known Malfoy was alive. After the night Dumbledore died, no one ever saw him again. When Snape had come back a year later to give the remaining members of The Order Voldemort's location, he had said Malfoy was safe. Hidden away somewhere in the muggle world. She remembered feeling bitter satisfaction at the irony of his situation - forced to live with the people he most detested.

As she stood in the doorway, staring at his motionless body, she wondered what had brought him back. Sure, Voldemort was gone, but there were still plenty of people who wouldn't mind seeing him dead. His father's old enemies, fanatic former followers of The Order - hell - even she wouldn't shed a tear if his body turned up in a ditch somewhere.

The Healers surrounding him looked at each other. A short, bald one said to the Healer who had given Hermione the Sleeping Potion, "Adair? Would you like to do the honors?" Adair raised his wand. "_Mobilicorpus._" The Healers walked along with Malfoy's body bobbing next to them in midair, descending down the hallway.

Hermione watched them disappear around the corner.

---

"Well, it was about damn time!" Fred grinned and patted Ron on the back. "Didn't think you had the stones to tell her--"

"Fred!" Mrs. Weasly shot him a menacing look.

"Oh, come on, mum, we all knew he liked her--"

"Ever since we first saw them together--" quipped George from across the table, his mouth full of treacle tart.

It was a late summer's night in the beginning of august, and Harry, Hermione and Ron had arrived at The Burrow earlier that day. Naturally, Mrs. Weasly had prepared a huge dinner, and everyone was gathered around the kitchen table, eating dessert.

"So, ickle Ronnikins - if I may call you that," said Fred airily, "-could I suggest that you name your first child after your most handsome brother-"

"Oh, give it a rest," interrupted Ginny wearily. She turned to Ron. "So, how was your stay at the Dursley's?"

"Don't ask!" replied Ron, sounding relieved that the subject was no longer about his and Hermione's possible offspring. "Harry's elephantine cousin is the stupidest git I ever met--"

"I see _you've_ already forgotten about Percy," said George.

--

Later in the summer, before they had gone with Harry to find the first Horcrux, Ron and Hermione had sat outside in the grass, in back of The Burrow. Ron was pulling a loose string from the frazzled sleeve of his robes.

"Do you think he'll be able to do it?"

"Do what?" asked Hermione, knowing perfectly well what he meant.

"Kill him. D'you think Harry will be able to kill him?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Well, Dumbledore obviously thought so..." She pulled a few blades of grass out of the ground. "... and he has us."

Ron smiled. "Yeah."

--

Sometimes at night, as she lay in her bed at St. Mungo's, trying not to sleep, she wondered if he still would have done it if she hadn't said that.

--- 


	3. Chapter 3

III.

_what's left of me,  
i'll give to you..  
and if next to me,  
is all that you need to be  
would you settle for fantasy,  
if it's the best you could do?_

_John Mayer - Break Away_  
--

"I heard Malfoy was brought in here yesterday."

It was Harry's weekly visit.

Hermione looked at him from underneath her matted tangles of hair. It was anyone's guess when she had last brushed it.

Harry was examining his shoes as he went on, oblivious that Hermione was looking at him. "His case has been assigned to one of the top Healers... apparently he wasn't coping too well in the muggle world. Not after what Voldemort did to him."

Hermione's eyes examined Harry's face quizzically.

"I know it's _Malfoy_ we're talking about, but I still can't help but feel bad for h--"

He was interrupted by the door to Hermione's room opening. Hermione quickly averted her gaze to the floor as a young blonde wizard stuck his head in.

"Mr. Potter, sir, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I can't remember what the proper procedure is when reporting a violation of the International Statute of Secrecy--"

Harry rolled his eyes and smiled at Hermione. "Alright, Ainsley, I'll be out in a minute." Ainsley nodded and closed the door. "My trainee," Harry explained. "He's going to be taking his final auror exams later this week, and he's been bugging the hell out of me with questions all day." Harry cleared his throat. "I guess I'd better get going."

Hermione felt Harry's hand pat her shoulder reassuringly.

--

The doors in ward 50 were never locked. The Forlorn didn't exactly wander the halls alot, since most of them weren't even aware they were alive.

Hermione paced her room for the sixth night in a row, wondering about Malfoy. It was the first time since she had been admitted to St. Mungo's that she had wondered about anything other than Ron, or what her life might had been like if he were still alive.

It was also the first time that Hermione ever left her room.

Echoing the Healers steps, she walked down the hallway where she had seen them take Malfoy.

Turning around the familiar corner, she saw only one shabby black door at the end of a longer, narrower hall.

--

He was sitting on an armchair in front of a large window. The instant he had heard the doorknob turn, he whipped his eyes away from the busy street below, expecting that the Healers had come back to ask him more inane questions.

The door creaked open, and through the small crack he saw the bushy hair and hazel eyes that he hadn't seen for years.

"_Granger..?_" He got up and advanced slowly towards her, "What the hell ..are _you_ doing here?"

Hermione abruptly found herself standing inches away from Draco Malfoy. His voice brought back all the horrible memories from school she was constantly trying to forget. His insults, his stares, _..Ron._

She couldn't remember what possible reason she might have had for going to see him. She desperately tried to look anywhere but into his eyes. He grabbed her face and forced her eyes to meet his.

"Mudblood, I asked you a _question._"

Wrenching her face out of his hands, she suddenly found herself running back towards her room. Slamming the door behind her, she sank down onto the floor, shaking.

--

Malfoy stood staring after her. What was that mudblood bitch doing here? _In patients' robes?_ His eyes narrowed as he started teeming with anger.

At that moment, hatred exploded inside him. He hated everything. He hated this hospital and it's stupid fucking Healers. He hated that muggle mental hospital that he had been forced to spend three years in. He hated Snape for first binding his magic and making him live in the muggle world and then getting himself killed before revealing his location, leaving him at the mercy of _muggles._ But most of all, he hated fucking Harry Potter, the Gryffindor Golden Boy and his fucking friends, especially that mudblood whore Granger.

Before he knew what he was doing, he was running after her.

--

She didn't know if she had heard him come in. She didn't know how long he had been standing there.

All she knew was that she turned around, and one second, she was looking at him standing in the doorway, and the next, he was on top of her. And she punched and pushed and kicked untill her arms and legs coudn't struggle anymore. Involuntary tears crinkled out of the corners of her eyes as her mind screamed helplessly at her aching body to keep fighting. Between heaving gasps, he asked her if he was the second to have her.

_'Have.'_ That was the word he used. That was the word Ron had used too.

---

"This is it."

The mood at The Headquarters was tense and thick with anticipation.

Hermione glanced over at Harry. He was staring determinedly at the floor. Lupin continued with his speech.

"Moody, Tonks, Snape and I will go in first to take out as many Death Eaters as possible. Thirty minutes later, Kingsley and Harry will follow."

Hermione snapped her head over to face Lupin. "What about us?"

Lupin opened his mouth to answer, but Harry spoke first.

"You've already helped me enough..." He looked at Ron, who was sitting next to Hermione. "You **know** the prophecy. This is my battle."

"Don't be stupid, mate," Ron said. "We're coming with you."

---

Hermione opened her eyes. At first, she couldn't remember why she was so sore, or why her eyes felt swollen, as if she had been crying for hours the night before. Then, as she heaved herself up into a sitting position, she noticed the rips and tears in her robes, and her eyes welled up as she remembered.

--

Draco told himself that the first time he did it, it wasn't because he had wanted to. It wasn't as if he enjoyed it.

And the second time he did it, he told himself it was just to torture her.

He was running out of excuses the third and fourth time.

The fifth time, she touched him back.

---

Harry hadn't visited her in three weeks.

---


	4. Chapter 4

IV.

_I have seen fear  
I have seen faith  
Seen the look of anger on your face  
And if you want to talk about what will be,  
Come and sit with me, and cry on my shoulder,  
I'm a friend_

James Blunt - Cry  
--

She never talked to him.

Sometimes, Draco wondered if she even understood him. If she was still conscious on the inside. Then, sometimes, he caught her looking at him in a way he couldn't quite fathom. Or afterwards, as he lay ontop of her, catching his breath, she let her gaze or hands linger on him for a little longer than they needed to.

And he wanted to believe she was still in there, somewhere.

--

She never talked to him.

Sometimes, she wondered if Draco knew she understood him. She hoped the way she looked at him, the way she let her hands or her gaze linger a little longer than they had to let him understand she was still in there, somewhere.

Even though he hurt her, even though he caused her pain and suffering and humiliated her, she still longed for his visits. She just wanted to feel something or than the loss of Ron.

Something other than emptiness.

---

_"Protegro!"_

Hermione pointed her wand directly at the Death Eater in front of her. The green curse expelled from his wand ricocheted off her Shield Charm as she ducked behind a tree. Taking advantage of the moment, Hermione glanced around to see how the others were doing. Voldemort wasn't surrounded by Death Eaters anymore; Lupin, Moody, Snape and Tonks had kept their word.

Harry was dueling fiercly with a tall, slim death eater.

He didn't see Voldemort advancing behind him. He didn't see Voldemort raise his wand. Hermione opened her mouth to warn Harry, but Ron was first.

"Harry!"

Ron didn't hesitate for a second.

Hermione saw Ron leap into the air. She saw the curse hit him squarely in the chest. She saw him crumple in midair and hit the ground. Harry spun around and before Voldemort could recover from the distraction, Harry had uttered the curse that ended the second war.

All around them, Death Eaters howled in agony. Clutching their left forearms, they fell to the ground, screaming in pain.

Forgetting she was in the middle of a duel, forgetting this was a war, forgetting everything except Ron, she ran. Dropping down next to his side, she stared at his blank features.

"Ron," she said meekly, clamping her quivering hands on his lifeless ones.

"Ron.." she repeated, certain that if she just sat there long enough, if she just believed with enough conviction, that he would stir. He couldn't possibly be... _dead_. The idea was almost laughable.

"Hermione." She felt Harry rest his hands on her shoulders and she looked up. "He's ok, Harry."

_He has to be._

Smiling at Ron, she bent down and whispered, "You were so brave." The tears came gushing out of nowhere as she buried her face in his chest and tightened her grip on his hands. "I'm so proud of you, Ron," she whimpered into his robes.

---

Hermione waited in for him to come. He was more than an hour late, and even though Hermione knew he wouldn't, she still kept hoping he'd open her door and stride in wordlessly, like he usually did, so they could both have a few hours of release. A few hours of not constantly feeling hopeless and alone, a few hours of knowing that just right then and there, someone else understood.

--

Draco was sitting in his armchair, his face buried in his hands. There was no doubt about it, he could never go to see her again. Somehow, he had gone from raping her to fucking her to making love to her. And even though he was an adult, and his parents were gone, and there was no one left to disown him, he felt ashamed. Ashamed of the fact that he would miss her. He would miss the way she looked at him, the way her skin felt against his, the way she tasted sweet and warm in his mouth, and the way he knew she was the only one who could possibly understand how it felt to be completely broken inside.

The way that at times, he didn't even care she was a mudblood.

--

So when Hermione came to his room that night, he didn't push her away. Because he knew how much she needed him, and she knew how much he needed her.

And sometimes, it felt good to be needed.

That night, Hermione needed him to listen.

--- 


	5. Chapter 5

V.

_I watched you suffer a dull aching pain  
Now you decided to show me the same  
No sweeping exits or offstage lines  
Could make me feel bitter or treat you unkind_

I know I dreamed you a sin and a lie  
I have my freedom but I don't have much time  
Faith has been broken, tears must be cried  
Let's do some living after we die

The Rolling Stones - Wild Horses  
---

Draco looked down at Hermione. She was looking straight at him, and for the first time, she wasn't shaking or avoiding his eyes. Draco put his hands on her face, tracing her features, her nose, her cheeks, her mouth.

She pushed his hands away and brought them down to her waist. He kissed her neck and pushed her down on the bed, trailing his fingers on the sides of her legs and pushing her robes up to her waist. She pulled him down ontop of her and ran her fingers through his smooth, silver hair.

And suddenly, his hands were on her face again, and she pulled away, because she couldn't bear the affection. He broke away and looked at her.

"Granger."

She sat up.

"Granger," he repeated. "Don't."

Hermione looked away from him, studying a spot on the wall.

"I.." Hermione's voice felt rusty with disuse.

"I ..miss him."

Draco didn't know what to say, or where to look. This was all wrong. He wasn't the right person to hear this.

"I just.." Hermione broke off, looking down at the floor. "I don't know why..." Her voice cracked and she bit her lip. "I don't understand why... it had to happen to me." She kept her eyes on the floor as she fought to keep her face neutral.

She stood up and moved towards the door. Draco caught her arm and pulled her back.

Their trysts had been going on for months. But that night was the first time they really touched each other.

--

Hermione was thinking about Ron again, Draco was sure of it. She was always thinking about him. That half bemused look, that meant she was thinking about him. The way she played with her hair, that meant she was thinking about him. Draco had given up trying to rationalize his actions weeks ago.

_It's in a hospital, so it doesn't count._

I'm crazy, so it doesn't count.

We're **both** crazy, so it doesn't count.

He didn't know who he was anymore. His father was dead. The family fortune was gone. He had no idea where his mother was. His friends had all dissipated with his money. So, why not go all the way and fuck a mudblood? Why not love her? Why not marry her?

He wanted to destroy everything in his life, and be done with it. Crush any last hope of redemption as a pureblood. There was no fucking way he would ever go back there, not after what had happened to him.

Not after what he'd done.

He hated muggles and mudbloods more than ever, but after the pureblood community found out he had spent three years living there, _without magic,_ there was no way he'd be let back in anyway.

Now both sides hated him, and the only ally he had was the crazy mudblood bitch he fucked regularly.

When their touches had become more gentle, he had tried to ignore it. He told himself it was just because both of them hadn't felt touch for so long. When he realized he longed for her, he couldn't ignore it anymore. When she came into his room that night, and she had _talked_ to him, he knew they were both too far gone to do anything.

The way she made him feel. He was sure it wasn't love. It was some sort of kindred desperation, a sort of desperation that only people who have lost everything can feel. He knew she felt that too, and when they were together, it was as if they were enough broken pieces that could come together and just amount to one normal person. Her broken heart. His shattered mind. Their hands, quick and fast and desperate and searching for something to hold on to.

--

So they ignored everything. They ignored the fact that they were opposites. They ignored who they used to be, because that was all gone now anyway. They weren't the same people. They weren't people at all. They were just empty shells of the past, ghosts wandering the hallways of a hospital, casualties of a war everyone was trying to forget.

--

Harry prattled on about nothing on his next visit.

"Ainsley passed his exams, but do you think that stops him from asking me inane questions all day--"

_I fucked Malfoy last night._

"I've started avoiding him. I have to take a huge detour to get to the lou and sometimes I even use my invisibility cloak--"

_It was great._

"I know, it sounds a bit desperate, but if you were there, you'd understand--"

_The pureblood and mudblood, sitting in a tree._

Eff-You-See-Kay-Eye-En-Gee.

--

"What did he do to you?"

Hermione looked at Draco searchingly.

"What?"

Draco hadn't done much of the talking. He'd left that to her. She seemed like she needed to talk, and he needed someone to talk to him like he wasn't a disgrace. Like he wasn't a treacherous self-serving asshole.

"Voldemort. What did he do to you?"

Draco ran his fingers through his hair and gave a nervous laugh.

"Well, he tried to get me to kill Dumbledore.. But you knew that. And I couldn't. You knew that too. And then he..." Draco stopped and rubbed his face. "It's not important." He gave an insincere smile.

"Tell me about how you and Ron first met."

Draco hated hearing Hermione talk about Ron. But it was the only way to delay what he would have to tell her eventually. And he just wanted her to talk to him like a normal person for a little while longer.

Just until he told her the truth.

--- 


	6. Chapter 6

VI. 

_And I do believe it's true  
That there are roads left in both of our shoes,  
But if the silence takes you  
Then I hope it takes me too.  
So brown eyes, I'll hold you near,  
'Cause you're thee only song I want to hear.  
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere_

_Death Cab For Cutie - Soul Meets Body _  
--

Hermione couldn't remember exactly what Ron looked like anymore. In her memories, his face was blurry. She couldn't recall exactly where his freckles were, or where his face crinkled when he smiled.

_Maybe,_ she thought, _Maybe it's the lack of sleep._

She strained to recall the exact red shade of his hair. How tall he was. How his fingers felt when they traced her skin--

--

"What?"

Hermione opened her eyes. Draco was on top of her, out of breath, small beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

"You just said something--" he gasped. "-- It sounded like 'Ron.'"

"I didn't say anything."

Draco stopped and rolled off her.

"Fuck!" He turned away from her. "You were thinking about him! You're always thinking about him, aren't you?"

"I wasn't." Hermione wasn't sure why she lied.

Draco snorted.

"You're just going to keep doing this. You're going to rot away in this place, pining for him."

Hermione didn't answer.

"You don't know what your life would be like if he were still alive." He turned around and looked at her.

"You don't even know if you'd still **be** together."

"We would have been," she said quietly. "You don't know what we had--"

"_YOU_ DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU HAD ANYMORE! All you have left is some romanticized idea of what might have happened in the future!"

"Don't talk to me like that!"

"I'll talk to you _however I damn well please!_"

Draco stood up and pulled his robes back on.

"You can fool everyone here. You can fool Potter. You can fool The Healers, and maybe you can even fool yourself, but you can't fool me. You're not doing this for _Weasley_, you're doing this for yourself."

He strode out of her room and headed back towards his own. He heard Hermione get out of bed, pull her robes on too, and run after him. When she came in, he was staring out the window.

"What is this really about?"

She tilted her head to one side and looked down at the floor.

"_Malfoy_, I asked you a question."

"_Granger_, I heard your bloody question, and I'm ignoring you."

"Is this about your father?"

Draco rolled his eyes.

"Could we not do this?"

"Do what?"

"Have the conversation you're hoping we will."

"And what conversation would that be?"

"The one where I tell you how much I miss my poor, dead father and become a big blubbering baby so you can feel better about yourself for getting me to open up."

"So, this **is** about your father."

They stood there in silence, illuminated by the moonlight for a few minutes until Draco finally spoke, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Go away."

---

Draco hadn't come to see Hermione in weeks. She hadn't gone to see him either.

She told herself it was better this way.

She had almost convinced herself, too.

---

"That's what he did."

Hermione wasn't sleeping. She hadn't heard him come in, either. But when she opened her eyes, he was there, standing over her.

"Voldemort. He.. caused my father's death."

Hermione sat up.

"Voldemort killed your father?"

Draco's eyes were focused somewhere behind Hermione.

"No."

His cold eyes met hers.

"I did."

Hermione was sure her heart stopped beating for a moment.

"_What?_ But--"

"When I couldn't kill Dumbledore, Voldemort told me he had known I wouldn't all along. He..."

Draco took a deep breath, as if he was bracing himself.

"He tortured me for weeks." Draco looked at his feet.

"He tortured my parents."

Hermione was looking up at him sadly, and he couldn't stand the pity in her eyes. He kept on talking, because he needed her to know. What he had done. Who he was.

He needed her to hate him.

"He put me in a room with my father. Then, he gave me a wand. He said... he said, that if I... did, he would let my mother and I go."

Hermione got up and approached him.

"Draco--" she began.

She'd never called him that before. The sound of her saying his first name made him cringe. She reached out a hand to touch his face, and he backed away.

"Don't."

"It wasn't your fault--"

Draco's eyes flashed angrily at her words.

"Don't do that! Don't try to redeem me! I'm not fucking _Saint Weasley!_ I killed my _father_--"

"What about your mother? You did it to save her too-"

"The hell I did! I did it to save myself, and if I had the chance, I'd do the same thing again!"

--

_Hate me. I need you to hate me and loathe me and push me away._

"You're wrong." Hermione took his hand, and he didn't pull away from her that time.

_Don't do this._

"We're not who we used to be."

_Do anything but this._

"I know you."

_Do anything but make me feel._

---


	7. Chapter 7

VII. 

_I run off where the drifts get deeper  
Sleeping beauty trips me with a frown  
I hear a voice  
'you must learn to stand up for yourself  
Cause I can't always be around'_

_He says when you gonna make up your mind  
When you gonna love you as much as I do_

_Tori Amos - Winter_  
--

His words had hit a nerve.

"You don't even know what you had--"

Hermione waited until Draco was asleep to think about what he had said.

"All you have left is some romanticized idea of what might have happened--"

She ransacked her brain. After all the hours, days, weeks, months, _years_ she had spent fantasizing, she couldn't distinguish the fabrications from the memories. She frowned at the ceiling, trying to disentangle memories.

The time in the forest..._ That happened._

When they stayed out all night..._ That was a dream._

That day when she told him..._ That happened. No, that was a dream. **Wasn't it?**_

---

_You're a fucking mudblood._

Draco watched Hermione sleep.  
_  
But you're all I have left._

It wouldn't matter this time tomorrow, anyway.

--

Somewhere far off, Hermione heard Draco sigh. She didn't want to wake up just yet, and nestled her head deeper against the pillows. She could already feel the sleepiness wearing off and opened her eyes. He had been watching her, she realized, and it made her smile.

Draco didn't return the smile, but sat up instead and stared at the wall.

"You should probably get back to your room before the Healers start their rounds."

"Healers don't do rounds on sundays, and you know that."

He rolled his eyes.

"I was trying to make you leave politely."

"I think we passed polite a long time ago."

Draco bit back a snarky comment and lay back down. Before he knew what he was doing, he had his arm around her and was pulling her to him. He held her in a one-armed hug and breathed in her smell before yanking back his arm and pushing her lightly.

"See you tonight, then."

She laughed.

---

_So this is how it's going to be._

Draco paced him room for the hundredth time that evening.

_So you're just going to be a chicken shit, like always and do it without telling her._

He'd never cared about anyone else's feelings before. He'd never had any reason to.

After all, he was a Malfoy. The poster boy of Slytherin. He was the cold hearted, ruthless prick who killed his father to save himself, and he didn't regret it.

Except, he wasn't cold hearted or without regret, and she'd seen that.

She'd instantly seen how much he regretted killing his father, it was almost as if she'd been there, in the room watching him when he'd done it. Seen his trembling hands pick up the wand, seen his shaking lips utter the curse, seen the tears trickling down his face as his father's proud figure was reduced to a crumpled heap on the floor. He'd sat there, staring at his father's body for hours. When the door opened behind him, he expected it was Voldemort who had come to kill him too.

He was almost glad.

But it wasn't Voldemort. It was Snape.

Snape had taken one look at the scene before him, and pulled Malfoy away from his father. It was that night Snape had bound his magic and placed him in a muggle orphanage.

Draco ran away within a week.

Eventually, he had ended up in a muggle mental hospital.

As Draco remembered his experiences during his three-year stay there, he violently clenched his fists, making his knuckles turn white.

_Electric shocks. "Therapy," they had called it._

_Pills. "Good for you," they had said._

Draco's thoughts were interrupted by the door opening.

Hermione entered, smiling.

_This is it. You have to do it now. It will be easier this way._

---

Hermione waited impatiently for the evening to come, when she could go to see Malfoy.

It wasn't just about forgetting Ron anymore. Malfoy wasn't just a temporary substitution for pain. She actually _wanted_ to see him. He was a person she could talk to, he was someone she could touch.

He was someone who didn't treat her like glass.

---

Closing the door carefully behind herself, she walked up to him.

"Hi."

She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into a hug. He pushed her away, and backed off.

"We have to talk."

She looked at him worriedly.

"Ok."

_We can't do this anymore._

"I..."

_I didn't mean for it to go this far in the first place._

"You..."

The words faltered in his mouth. What difference would it make now, anyway? She'd find out soon enough.

"You... you should stay the whole night, tonight."

--

That night, Malfoy stared at her sleeping figure. He knew she was asleep, or he never would have run his hand across her face like that. He wouldn't have stroked her hair like that. He wouldn't have sighed like that. He wouldn't have whispered that in her ear.

--

Malfoy must've thought she was asleep. Otherwise, he never would've run his hand across her face like that. He never would've stroked her hair, or sighed.

And he would never have whispered, _"I'm sorry."_

---


	8. Chapter 8

VIII. 

_I saw the end before we'd begun  
Yes I saw you were blinded and I knew I had won  
So I took what's mine by eternal right  
Took your soul out into the night  
It may be over but it won't stop there  
I am here for you if you'd only care  
You touched my heart you touched my soul  
You changed my life and all my goals  
And love is blind and that I knew when  
My heart was blinded by you  
I've kissed your lips and held your head  
Shared your dreams and shared your bed  
I know you well, I know your smell  
I've been addicted to you_

_Goodbye my lover  
Goodbye my friend  
You have been the one  
You have been the one for me_

_James Blunt - Goodbye My Lover_  
--

He blinked.

He had just been thinking about something. No... some_one._

"Mr. Malfoy?" The voice was coming from the other side of the door in front of him. Suddenly, it burst open and several people in lime green clothes spilled in. A dark-haired man was staring at him with a panicked look on his face.

"Mr. Malfoy, what did you do?"

The man seemed to be talking to him, but he couldn't fathom why he was being called Mr. Malfoy. After all, his name wasn't...

_was it?_ It **was.** No, his name was...

He couldn't quite... it was like having a word on the tip of his tongue--

Suddenly, he noticed that he was holding a long, thin stick of wood in his right hand. It was smooth, and slightly warm to the touch.

"Mr. Malfoy, please, what did you do?"

He looked back at the dark-haired man.

"Why..." His grey eyes examined the man's face. "Why are you calling me that?"

---

Hermione sat on her bed. She knew Harry would probably be coming any day now, but she almost wished he wouldn't. The hours when he visited her, were hours she couldn't be with Malfoy.

--

Her door swung open, startling her. Harry walked in cheerfully.

"Hey, Hermione!" He sat down at the end of her bed and looked at her.

"Sorry I havn't been visiting that often, it's just... you know, work can be crazy and all that."

She stared down at the blanket on her bed.

Harry sighed. Suddenly, his demeanor changed.

"Hey, you'll never guess what happened here this morning."

He pulled both his legs up on the bed and settled down.

"Ok, you know Malfoy is in here, right--"

Hermione froze.

"As turns out, he had a wand hidden away in his room somewhere--"

The blood in her veins must have gone to ice.

"And the Healers sensed magic being done, so they went to check his room--"

Her heart wasn't beating, she was sure of it.

"And when they got in, he had oblivated his own memory!"

She must have been dead by now.

"They reckon he couldn't take the guilt of killing his own father, or the muggles must've really done something to him in that mental hospital--"

Hermione didn't hear anything else that Harry said.

--

With Ron, it had been different. Ron probably wouldn't have minded that she mourned for him.

But Draco... He would have hated it. She didn't know exactly what to do. Be sad? Feel betrayed? Hate him?

She'd seen him walking in the hallways. He looked different. He didn't have his trademark arrogance, or haughty manner anymore. He just wandered around, gazing at walls and people interestedly, looking like a little, lost child.

He was there, but he was gone.

--

She couldn't sleep, again.

--

_It wasn't fair._

Twice she had let someone into her heart, twice it had been broken.

_It wasn't supposed to be like this._

Ron was dead. He had been dead for years, and he was never, ever coming back. Draco was as good as dead. Maybe worse.

The Healers hadn't told him who he was. They had decided he was better off not knowing what he had done, what he had been through, or who he was.

He'd probably be in here for the rest of his life.

--

She hadn't slept for weeks. Instead of dreams about Ron, there were dreams of Draco. But these dreams were different. They didn't bear any resemblance to what she and him had together.

This time, her dreams really were romantic fabrications, and she couldn't stand it.

She couldn't stand living in a dream world anymore. She couldn't bear the thought of staying in St. Mungo's, having to see him be there, but not really _be_ there.

--

Months had passed. Every time she saw Draco, she wanted to grab him and shake him. Yell at him, scream at him, hit him, and force him to remember. _How could you forget?_

_How could you forget that you saved me?_

Maybe this was what he had wanted. Maybe he had done it without telling her for a purpose. Maybe he was trying to teach her a lesson.

Maybe this was _it_. The last thing he ever said to her. The thing he was sorry about.

--

She couldn't mourn for Ron anymore. She couldn't even begin to mourn for Draco. She couldn't move on with her life, and just pretend nothing had happened. Just pretend everything was all sunshine and daisies and fucking great.

But she couldn't keep doing this either. She couldn't keep holding desperately onto the past, onto memories and dreams and whatever else she imagined life might be. So maybe she could do something else.

Maybe she could start trying, at least.

---

The Healer entered her room.

"It's time for your Sleeping Potion."

He sighed, took the vial of purple potion out of his pocket and sat down on her bed.

"Miss Granger... we want to help you. But we can't do that unless you let us."

For the first time, she looked up at him.

For the first time, she tried to reach out.

"Ok," she said.

"This time, I'll let you help me."

THE END.

---

**Final Notes: **To answer a reviewer - yeah, this is it. No sequels or anything, it's finito. This was pretty hard for me to write, angst doesn't come naturally to me, but yeah. It's not a happy go-lucky ending, and sorry, but it's just not supposed to be like that.


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